We're due.

 

A Factory of Sadness

This pretty much sums up my feelings of my beloved Browns this season. Sigh.

And yes, I'll see you Sunday. Go Browns.

It's Finally Here

Well the big day has finally arrived. As a fanatical football fan and die-hard Cleveland Browns fan – Go Browns! – I’ve been waiting for this day for two weeks. I know, I know, the Browns aren't playing, but I'll be watching.

Now before you leave, let me explain. Many Canadian males religiously follow hockey. I follow the NHL, but nowhere to the extent I follow American football. As I often say – hockey, it ain’t football. But I do love my Habs. I follow the NFL and for me, football and specifically the Super Bowl, are like Christmas, Easter, my birthday, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa and any other religious holiday you can think of, rolled into one. That definitely includes St. Patrick’s Day, if you know what I mean.

Today, like hundreds of millions worldwide, I will watch the game. I spend all week finishing projects and preparing next weeks work so I could enjoy the game guilt free with a few hundred close friends and a cold beverage or two.

The obsession is difficult for the non-football person to grasp, just as it is hard for me to understand why some people climb mountains, yodel or skydive. Why someone wants to jump out of a perfectly good plane is beyond me. But to each his own and fill yer boots - whatever floats your boat. My obsession may be a vice, but it’s harmless and for a few hours every Sunday in autumn, I don’t have to do anything but watch a game where grown men try to inflict grievous bodily harm to people wearing a different colour uniform.

As for today’s game, I reluctantly have to pull for Green Bay. Pittsburgh is in the same division as my beloved Browns and has had their number for the past number of years – okay decades. So it’s not in my DNA to cheer for the enemy. Final score: Green Bay 31, Pittsburgh 21.

Are You Ready For Some....Football?

Last night, my favourite sports season started up again – yes, after a six-month hiatus, Hungarian midget wrestling is back. Well, not exactly. NFL football started. (Please stop rolling your eyes.) I know, you’re problay thinking not another sports blog, but I really do enjoy the American game. College too. Go Irish! And some of the best games of the year at the collegiate level are played in the SEC. (South East Conference)

I enjoy it much more than the CFL, which I used to watch religiously as a kid, but it doesn’t compare to the NFL. For one thing, my team - wait, God’s team- the Cleveland Browns, play in the NFL. Go Browns! Although the way my Browns have been playing lately – lately being the last fifteen years – the Alouettes could give them a run for their money. Apparently, God has a sense of humour.

As much as I like hockey specifically the Habs (Guy Lafleur is a god-like figure in my house) the NFL trumps the NHL any day of the week. Sacrilegious talk from a Canadian for sure. But like I always say, hockey – it ain’t football.

With the new season comes new hope. The Browns, who are picked by everyone to finish last in their division again, may surprise some people. Hell, if we win 7 games, we’ll surprise the hell out of everyone. But us die-hard fans, those who cheer and pray on Sunday mornings and afternoons, those of us with posters on our walls and carry fan club cards in our wallets (which is really a cry for help), go in hoping for the best. We have to – it’s all we got.

Well, not all we have. I’m in about six different football pools and play the ponies – ponies being ProLine - every week. I don’t bet much and I win less. But it’s fun and makes the other games meaningful – not that I need another excuse to watch football.

My wife is a football widow who is content to let me watch 12 hours of football on Sunday’s. So win, lose or draw, I'm lucky in that sense. She’s seen the pain over the years. The drive, the fumble  (I still hate John Elway to this day) and the1980 AFC Divisonal playoff when Brian Sipe threw an interception in the endzone to lose to the Raiders 14-12 (who eventually won the Superbowl  that year) when all they had to do was kick a field goal. It's been that long.

But every Dawg has its day. Eventually, I hope. Go Browns.

Sundays are for one thing only....Football

Yeah, I know what you're thinkin' - not another sports blog. Not that's there anyhing wrong with sports blogs.

Well its not. It's Sunday and I love the NFL (CFL - not so much). I’m a die-hard Cleveland Browns fan and for those who follow football, you're asking yourself, "What the fuck?"

Someone recently asked me why I cheer for the 1-7 Browns. You know the team that can't score an offensive touchdown, has a storied past but a miserable present (and likely future for a couple of years anyway). A team who best player is a punt returner. A team whose coach is more despised than Ralph Wiseman. And a team that - in a nationally televised game next Monday night - will have its fans boycott the opening kickoff. There's a reason they call Cleveland the "Mistake by the Lake".

But to answer the question as to why cheer for such a bad team - well I'm still working on it. However, ESPN's life long Browns fan, Geoff LaTulippe, offers some insight into the hard-luck life of a Browns fan.

For me the heartbreak began on January 4, 1981 and a 14-12 playoff loss to the Raiders with an interception in the endzone. Before the drive or the fumble. Just kick the fucking field goal! Oakland vs. Cleveland.

Excuse me now, while I cry in my beer and stare at the Bernie Kosar poster on the wall.